GUEST POST GORDON BICKERSTAFF

I have bought all Gordon’s books, every single one, and I’ve loved them all. I have one still lurking on my kindle, waiting for a special day. I love his characters, especially Zoe, although I have a real soft spot for Gavin. I like nervous heroes! If you enjoy crime/spy /science type thrillers then do check out these books. Over to Gordon.

I’ve been writing thrillers for nine years since I retired after 32 years teaching and research in higher education and 25 years teaching for the Open University.

My background in biochemistry fuels my imagination with material for creating thrillers underpinned by biomedical threads. Seven books have been published, and book eight, The Belgravia Sanction, will be published later in 2020.

The series has been well received and picked up a couple of book awards.

The Black Fox won a gold medal in the 2019 Readers Favorite Annual book awards and in the 2019 Independent Author Network Annual Book Awards received the Outstanding Fiction Award in thriller/espionage. Tabula Rasa won a gold medal in the 2018 Readers Favorite Annual book awards.

My stories take inspiration from the 1970s TV series Doomwatch. The cornerstone of the books is the Lambeth Group. A Home Office covert unit who investigate top secret crimes that cannot be prosecuted or made public because they would damage the government and the country. Spies, special forces, and academic specialists are brought together to tackle criminal activity capable of bringing the country and the world to its knees.

The Group came into being when a group of twenty-six, university vice-chancellors, from elite universities met secretly with Home Office mandarins at the Imperial War Museum, Lambeth Road, London. They formulated a covert doomwatch policing strategy for protection of the country from criminal, unethical, unprincipled scientists, and technologists.

The principal characters in the series are special forces-trained soldier, Zoe Tampsin, and biochemist Dr Gavin Shawlens. Zoe is a tough kick-ass character who uses brain rather than brawn to win the day. Readers generally like her. They understand where she’s coming from, and know what to expect.

Gavin, on the other hand, has confused some readers. He’s criticised for being a wimp who runs away from trouble when he’s scared. He’s an academic, naive in the world of espionage, not a trained spy or a soldier. His expertise helps Zoe to understand the mechanics of the issue being investigated. He does have moments of bravery in sticky situations, but not often.

The Belgravia Sanction is the next outing for Gavin and Zoe. A first draft of the blurb is given below. Any feedback would be welcome.

The Belgravia Sanction You can hide but you cannot escape my wrath.

In a remote Scottish cottage, two men and two women die from gunshot wounds. Police believe one killed the other three, then committed suicide. One of the four worked undercover for the Lambeth Group, and his team mate is missing. To find out what happened, a second team will follow the bread crumbs.

Led by Zoe Tampsin, they uncover a government deception, and expose a terrorist group operating in plain sight. An attack is imminent, which will destroy the special relationship between the UK and the USA. Zoe is prepared to stop them, but there is a deep-seated traitor in her camp, planning to stop her at any cost.

Social media links:

Bookbub:  https://www.bookbub.com/profile/gordon-bickerstaff

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100012357701552

Twitter: @GFBickerstaff

GoodreadsAuthorPage: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5776209.Gordon_Bickerstaff

Website: http://bit.ly/1g4gEoa

Availability:

Amazon: amzn.to/2EWlhs3

Apple: https://bit.ly/3eEYtKXApple

Kobo: bit.ly/3eDtiQ4Kobo

Nook: bit.ly/386rSexB7N

Thank you, Gordon, for being my guest this week. I will certainly be grabbing The Belgravia Sanction the moment it comes out.

If you’re an author and would like to be featured on this blog, drop a note in the comments below or pm me on FB.

Stay safe and take care.

Lucinda

GUEST POST DAMYANTI BISWAS

I have no idea where I found Damyanti’s book, only that I was visiting Delhi at the time, which is the setting for her novel “You Beneath Your Skin.”  Every moment we were not sightseeing I dived back in, observing the sights and sounds of the city which were so beautifully and honestly portrayed in her book.  I was so impressed that I emailed her to tell her how much I’d loved the story. So, I am really thrilled to welcome her as my guest this week.

Damyanti Biswas lives in Singapore, and supports Delhi’s underprivileged women and children, volunteering with organisations who work for this cause. Her short stories have been published in magazines in the US, UK, and Asia, and she helps edit the Forge Literary Magazine. You can find her on her blog.

She also sends out monthly newsletters with book recommendations and writing resources, which you can grab here.

ABOUT THE NOVEL: YOU BENEATH YOUR SKIN.

PUBLISHER: Simon & Schuster IN

Promotion: Free on Amazon Kindle in all markets from the 7^th -11 th August

Optioned for TV screens by Endemol Shine.

You Beneath Your Skin is a crime novel about the investigation of an acid attack on a woman from Delhi’s upper class, set against the backdrop of crimes against underprivileged women. They are assaulted, disfigured with acid, and murdered.

It is a  whodunit, but also a whydunit, because violent crime unravels those affected: the people, the relationships, the very fabric of society, and we get a glimpse of what lies beneath. That’s why the title, You Beneath Your Skin.

All the author proceeds from You Beneath Your Skin will support the education and empowerment of women at Project WHY and Stop Acid Attacks.

You Beneath Your Skin has been optioned for TV screens by Endemol Shine, as announced by Hollywood Deadline.

Lies. Ambition. Family. 

It’s a dark, smog-choked New  Delhi winter. Indian American single mother Anjali Morgan juggles her job as a psychiatrist with caring for her autistic teenage son. She is  in a long-standing affair with ambitious Police Commissioner Jatin Bhatt  – an irresistible attraction that could destroy both their lives.

Jatin’s home life is falling apart: his handsome and charming son is not all he appears to be, and his wife has too much on her plate to pay attention to either husband or son. But Jatin refuses to listen to anyone, not even the sister to whom he is deeply attached.

Across the city there is a crime spree: slum women found stuffed in trash bags,  faces and bodies disfigured by acid. And as events spiral out of control Anjali is horrifyingly at the centre of it all.

In a sordid world of poverty, misogyny, and political corruption, Jatin must make some hard choices. But what he unearths is only the tip of the iceberg. Together with Anjali he must confront old wounds and uncover long-held secrets before it is too late.

Amazon: mybook.to/YouBeneathYourSkin

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/47634028-you-beneath-your-skin

AUDIENCE FOR YOU BENEATH YOUR SKIN:

Bookclubs, because of the discussion questions: Within the framework of a thriller the novel tackles various social issues: crimes against women and why they occur, the nexus between political corruption, police and big money; the abuse of the underprivileged, be it adults or children, and the scourge of acid attacks.

Parents, because of the issues tackled: How do you bring up a good human being in today’s troubled times? If you’re the parent of a special child, what challenges do you face and what sort of support can you expect?

SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS IN ORDER TO RECEIVE SHARES OF YOUR POST:

To get shares, pls tag at @damyantig on Twitter and Insta.

@SimonandSchusterIN : Insta

@SimonSchusterIN : Twitter

@Simon & Schuster IN: Facebook

@projectwhydelhi and @stopacidattacks on Twitter, Instagram and FB

Damyanti also sent me the following:-

Do You Like Your Stories Read to You?

Some of my earliest memories are of my grandma reading to me—poetry she herself had written, and of course the great Indian epics, Mahabharata and Ramayana. The winters at my childhood home in central India were balmy, but the summers could get blazing hot, 45 degrees in the shade. On those summer afternoons, sitting next to a cooling fan that gave off more noise than air, my grandma would read slowly in Bengali, my mother tongue, which I could speak, but neither read nor write. The words on the page looked like insects gone for walks, and yet they contained such magic and so much life.

Stories meant grandma’s wrinkly animated face, bright eyes, and the way her loose bun of hair slid this way and that as she described the slaying of a demon or a monkey-god carrying a mountain. I came to know much later that in those years, she battled cancer, a fight she lost when I was eleven.

When I read books I sometimes experience them like four-dimensional movies—complete with colours, music, scent, taste and texture, but nothing like those childhood afternoons with my grandmother. When audiobooks first grew mainstream, I picked them up and was disappointed. Perhaps the stories were not familiar, the readers not skilled enough, or my expectations too high. I would start listening but get side-tracked with my thoughts—especially when I listened to audiobooks in bed. My bed is my reading joint—I like curling up under the sheets and getting lost in a different world.

I’ve gone back to audiobooks time and again, and each time I’ve found myself getting lost. Sometimes I want to skip the dragging bits and end up skipping important parts as well. I have to rewind and play it again a few times before I understand what’s going on. Once in a while, a good one comes along: I’ve recently enjoyed Where the Crawdads Sing—possibly because it is so atmospheric, the voice of the character so strong that it is hard to lose track.

Stories were, after all, an entirely oral form once, until they turned into theatre, into choral performances. Written stories came much later. With an increasingly busy life, I have less and less time set aside for reading: the pandemic ensures that I have an entirely new set of chores, and writing deadlines loom. I’ve decided to try more audiobooks now, find the ones that hold my interest and thus keep me ‘reading’ books even as I go for my daily walks, or cook or clean or fold clothes.

My own debut crime novel, You Beneath Your Skin, has been optioned for TV screens and might turn into an audiobook as well, one of these days. Maybe some day I’ll get to listen to Anjali and Jatin’s adventures in New Delhi, their story spread across slums and malls, bedrooms and hotels, police stations and hospitals, all enveloped by the choking smog of a Delhi winter.

When that happens, I’ll know whether the love of stories that my grandma gave me has borne fruit. She was married at thirteen to a man much older than her, suffered many miscarriages before giving birth to my father and aunt, and over the years of encouraging them to study, taught herself to read. She learned enough that she read the classics in our mother tongue and wrote her own poetry, snippets of which lie fading in my cupboards, carefully wrapped in plastic.

In the meanwhile, I’ll try and read what books I can fit into my life, and listen to audiobooks if one catches my fancy. As I grow older though, I find that very few of them stand up to the dynamic, vivacious narrations by my grandmother who, while herself suffering from cancer, took time out to keep her grand-daughter entertained on those long Indian summer afternoons.

——————————————–

I wonder how many of us remember having stories told to us when we were little? Thank you so much for being my guest today Damyanti and I look forward to seeing your book on my television screen soon!

If you would like a guest post, please leave a comment below or contact me on my FB messenger.

Take care and stay safe.

Lucinda

GUEST POST – THERESA JACOBS

It’s great to meet another author who is not stuck in one genre only. If I thought I hopped around from one topic to another I am a long way behind this week’s guest.

Hi, my name is Theresa Jacobs and what can I say other than I love to write!

 

And I have a crazy imagination. Soon I’ll have enough varied genres written that I’ll have a book for everyone.

Seriously…horror? Got it.

Sci-fi? Yup.

Laidback phycological lit? Sure – though that one is hard to classify because it’s set in space, it has a touch of romance and aliens.

 

Campy horror-action? You’re covered.

Oh, serial killer-detective. YES!

This is Theresa’s latest book.  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088SM5K15/

Being handsome has its advantages and affords him easy access to people’s homes. They quickly learn you can not judge a book by its cover when they pay the ultimate price with their lives. He didn’t ask to look the way he does, nor to lose his loving mother at such a young age. Dealing with unwanted memories, he will find a way to erase his past by cleansing the city as he sees fit.

And, as they say, ‘that’s not all’.

And now a YA literature is on the way.

I won’t be stopping there either, the ideas are abundant and I’m game if you are. If you’re looking for fast-paced, interesting, yet light easy reading, you’re in the right place. Pop into my website, check out the merch, or my blog, or my movie – yup I said that too – and don’t forget to subscribe for updates.

See you over there, Theresa

https://theresajcbs.wixsite.com/authorpage

Thank you for being my guest this week, Theresa and if you are a writer and would like to be a guest, please leave a comment below, or you can pm me on Facebook.

Lucinda

 

MEET JUDY PENZ SHELUK

My guest this week is Judy Penz Sheluk who writes in one of the most popular genres – crime mysteries. I’ve not read her books yet, but after now, they are firmly on my TBR list.  Great news is that her latest book is out tomorrow – just in time to snap up for the weekend.

Judy Penz Sheluk is the Amazon international bestselling author of the Glass Dolphin Mysteries and the Marketville Mysteries. Her short stories appear in several collections.

Judy is also a member of Sisters in Crime International, Sisters in Crime – Guppies, Sisters in Crime – Toronto, International Thriller Writers, Inc., the South Simcoe Arts Council, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and Crime Writers of Canada, where she serves on the Board of Directors, representing Toronto/Southwestern Ontario. She splits her time between Alliston, Ontario, and her property on Lake Superior, with her husband, Mike, and their golden retriever, Gibbs.

As an author, I get asked a lot of questions. One of the most popular is, “Where do you get your ideas?” While each author’s answer will vary, I typically reply “From life,” and then I’ll usually cite the premise behind my 2015 debut novel, The Hanged Man’s Noose:

 

A greedy developer comes to town with plans to build a mega-box store on the fictional town of Lount’s Landing’s historic Main Street, thereby threatening the livelihoods of all the indie businesses. That one was inspired by the goings-on in my actual town of Holland Landing (with one major exception: no one in my town was murdered over it).

The idea for my latest book, Past & Present, however, was inspired by death. Gosh that sounds macabre doesn’t it? And yet, it really isn’t. You see, I was trying to come up with a plot for book two in my Marketville Mystery series (the sequel to Skeletons in the Attic) and I was completely stuck. And then, on September 21, 2016, my mother, Anneliese Penz, passed away after a lengthy battle with COPD and a multitude of other health-related issues.

 

Going through her bedroom closet, I came upon a train case, the sort of case you’d have taken for toiletries and the like back in the 1950s. Tucked inside were a variety of documents, including her passport and immigration papers from 1952, documents from the ocean liner she came from England to Canada on (the TSS Canberra), old pictures and postcards…well, you get the idea. The thing is, I’d never seen any of these things before, and my mom never talked much of her life before coming to Canada to marry my father. In short, it was a mystery and the writer in me had to know more. I couldn’t ask my dad: he’d passed away from stomach cancer in 1970 at the age of 42.

I decided to start by researching the Canberra, reaching out to a friend who collects ocean liner memorabilia, and before long, a story was brewing. The end result was Past & Present, and while the story is fiction, the research undertaken by my present-day protagonist, Callie Barnstable, mirrors my own, right down to the occasional (and frustrating) roadblock as she digs into the past of one Anneliese Prei, who came to a “bad end” in 1956.

I’ve dedicated Past & Present to my mother, and the release date falls exactly two years after her passing. I like to think she’s with my father again, watching over me as my journey continues. It’s not exactly like life on an ocean liner, but some days it feels every bit as turbulent as a wild storm at sea…

About the book

Sometimes the past reaches out to the present…

It’s been thirteen months since Calamity (Callie) Barnstable inherited a house in Marketville under the condition that she search for the person who murdered her mother thirty years earlier. She solves the mystery, but what next? Unemployment? Another nine-to-five job in Toronto?

Callie decides to set down roots in Marketville, take the skills and knowledge she acquired over the past year, and start her own business: Past & Present Investigations.

It’s not long before Callie and her new business partner, best friend Chantelle Marchand, get their first client: a woman who wants to find out everything she can about her grandmother, Anneliese Prei, and how she came to a “bad end” in 1956. It sounds like a perfect first assignment. Except for one thing: Anneliese’s past winds its way into Callie’s present, and not in a manner anyone—least of all Callie—could have predicted.

Judy Penz Sheluk’s latest book in her Marketville Mystery series launches Sept. 21^st and is available on Amazon in trade paperback, Kindle, and Kindle Unlimited: http://authl.it/afj

I checked out Judy’s  amazon author page and see she has written quite a few books – so lots for me to add to the list.  You can also find her on her web page at http://www.judypenzsheluk.com.

Thank you Judy for being my guest.